Desire

A Prayer

'Mid the discordant noises of the day I hear thee calling;
I stumble as I fare along Earth's way; keep me from falling.


Mine eyes are open but they cannot see for gloom of night:
I can no more than lift my heart to thee for inward light.


The wild and fiery passion of my youth consumes my soul;
In agony I turn to thee for truth and self-control.


For Passion and all the pleasures it can give will die the death;
But this of me eternally must live, thy borrowed breath.


'Mid the discordant noises of the day I hear thee calling;
I stumble as I fare along Earth's way; keep me from falling.

The Invitation to the Voyage
My sister, my child
imagine, exiled,
The sweetness, of being there, we two!
To live and to sigh,
to love and to die,
In the land that mirrors you!
The misted haze
of its clouded days
Has the same charm to my mind,
as mysterious,
as your traiterous
Eyes, behind glittering blinds.
There everything’s order and beauty,
calm, voluptuousness, and luxury.
The surface gleams
are polished it seems,
Through the years, to grace our room.
The rarest flowers
mix, with fragrant showers,
The vague, amber perfume.
The dark, painted halls,
the deep mirrored walls,
With Eastern splendour hung,
all secretly speak,
To the soul, its discrete,
Sweet, native tongue.
There, everything’s order and beauty,
calm, voluptuousness and luxury.
See, down the canals,
the sleeping vessels,
Those nomads, their white sails furled:
Now, to accomplish
your every wish,
They come from the ends of the world.
- The deep sunsets
surround the west,
The canals, the city, entire,
with blue-violet and gold;
And the Earth grows cold
In an incandescent fire.
There, everything’s order and beauty,
calm, voluptuousness and luxury.

The Balcony
Mother of memories, mistress of mistresses,
O you, all my pleasures! O you, all my learning!
You will remember the joy of caresses,
the sweetness of home and the beauty of evening,
Mother of memories, mistress of mistresses!
On evenings lit by the glow of the ashes
and on the balcony, veiled, rose-coloured, misted,
how gentle your breast was, how good your heart to me!
We have said things meant for eternity,
on evenings lit by the glow of the ashes.
How lovely the light is on sultry evenings!
How deep the void grows! How powerful the heart is!
As I leaned towards you, queen of adored ones
I thought I breathed perfume from your blood’s kiss.
How lovely the light is on sultry evenings!
The night it was thickening and closing around us,
and my eyes in the dark were divining your glance,
and I drank your nectar. Oh sweetness! Oh poison!
your feet held, here, in these fraternal hands.
The night it was thickening and closing around us.
I know how to summon up happiest moments,
and relive my past, there, curled, touching your knees.
What good to search for your languorous beauties
but in your dear body, and your heart so sweet?
I know how to summon up happiest moments!
Those vows, those perfumes, those infinite kisses,
will they be reborn, from gulfs beyond soundings,
as the suns that are young again climb in the sky,
after they’ve passed through the deepest of drownings?
-O vows! O perfumes! O infinite kisses

The Carcass
Remember that object we saw, dear soul,
In the sweetness of a summer morn:
At a bend of the path a loathsome carrion
On a bed with pebbles strewn,
With legs raised like a lustful woman,
Burning and sweating poisons,
It spread open, nonchalant and scornful,
Its belly, ripe with exhalations.
The sun shone onto the rotting heap,
As if to bring it to the boil,
And tender a hundredfold to vast Nature
All that together she had joined;
And the sky watched that superb carcass
Like a flower blossom out.
The stench was so strong that on the grass
You thought you would pass out.
Flies hummed upon the putrid belly,
Whence larvae in black battalions spread
And like a heavy liquid flowed
Along the tatters deliquescing.
All together it unfurled, and rose like a wave
And bubbling it sprang forth;
One might have believed that, with a faint breath filled,
The body, multiplying, lived.
And this world gave out a strange music
Like of running water and of wind,
Or of grain in a winnow
Rhythmically shaken and tossed.
Form was erased and all but a vision,
A sketch slow to take shape
On a forgotten canvas, which the artist finishes
From memory alone.
Behind the rocks a fretting bitch
Looked at us with fierce mien
Anxious to retrieve from the corpse
A morsel that she had dropped.
Yet to this rot you shall be like,
To this horrid corruption,
Star of my eyes, sun of desire,
You, my angel and my passion!
Yes, such you shall be, you, queen of all graces,
After the last sacraments,


When you go beneath the grass and waxy flowers,
To mold among the skeletons.
Then, oh my beauty! You must tell the vermin,
As it eats you up with kisses,
That I have preserved the form and essence divine
Of my decayed loves.

Lethe
Come to my heart, cruel, insensible one,
Adored tiger, monster with the indolent air;
I would for a long time plunge my trembling fingers
Into the heavy tresses of your hair;
And in your garments that exhale your perfume
I would bury my aching head,
And breathe, like a withered flower,
The sweet, stale reek of my love that is dead.
I want to sleep! sleep rather than live!
And in a slumber, dubious as the tomb's,
I would lavish my kisses without remorse
Upon the burnished copper of your limbs.
To swallow my abated sobs
Nothing equals your bed's abyss;
Forgetfulness dwells in your mouth,
And Lethe flows from your kiss.
My destiny, henceforth my pleasure,
I shall obey, predestined instrument,
Docile martyr, condemned innocent,
Whose fervour but augments his torment.
I shall suck, to drown my rancour,
Nepenthe, hemlock, an opiate,
At the charming tips of this pointed breast
That has never imprisoned a heart.

Her Hair
O fleece, that down the neck waves to the nape!
O curls! O perfume nonchalant and rare!
O ecstasy! To fill this alcove shape
With memories that in these tresses sleep,
I would shake them like penions in the air!
Languorous Asia, burning Africa,
And a far world, defunct almost, absent,
Within your aromatic forest stay!
As other souls on music drift away,
Mine, O my love! still floats upon your scent.
I shall go there where, full of sap, both tree
And man swoon in the heat of the southern climates;
Strong tresses be the swell that carries me!
I dream upon your sea of amber
Of dazzling sails, of oarsmen, masts, and flames:
A sun-drenched and reverberating port,
Where I imbibe colour and sound and scent;
Where vessels, gliding through the gold and moiré,
Open their vast arms as they leave the shore
To clasp the pure and shimmering firmament.
I'll plunge my head, enamored of its pleasure,
In this black ocean where the other hides;
My subtle spirit then will know a measure
Of fertile idleness and fragrant leisure,
Lulled by the infinite rhythm of its tides!
Pavilion, of autumn-shadowed tresses spun,
You give me back the azure from afar;
And where the twisted locks are fringed with down
Lurk mingled odors I grow drunk upon
Of oil of coconut, of musk, and tar.
A long time! always! my hand in your hair
Will sow the stars of sapphire, pearl, ruby,
That you be never deaf to my desire,
My oasis and my gourd whence I aspire
To drink deep of the wine of memory.

Afternoon Song
Though your wicked eyebrows call
Your nature into question
(Unangelic's their suggestion,
Witch whose eyes enthrall)
I adore you still
O foolish terrible emotion
Kneeling in devotion
As a priest to his idol will.
Your undone braids conceal
Desert, forest scents,
In your exotic countenance
Lie secrets unrevealed.
Over your flesh perfume drifts
Like incense 'round a censor,
Tantalizing dispenser
Of evening's ardent gifts.
No Philtres could compete
With your potent idleness:
You've mastered the caress
That raises dead me to their feet.
Your hips themselves are romanced
By your back and by your breasts:
By your languid dalliance.
Now and then, your appetite's
Uncontrolled, unassuaged:
Mysteriously enraged,
You kiss me and you bite.
Dark one, I am torn
By your savage ways,
Then, soft as the moon, your gaze
Sees my tortured heart reborn.
Beneath your satin shoe,
Beneath your charming silken foot.
My greatest joy I put
My genius and destiny, too.
You bring my spirit back,
Bringer of the light.
Exploding color in the night
Of my Siberia so black.

Mask


Fling your red scarf faster and faster, dancer.
It is summer and the sun loves a million green leaves, masses of green.
Your red scarf flashes across them calling and a-calling.
The silk and flare of it is a great soprano leading a chorus
Carried along in a rouse of voices reaching for the heart of the world.
Your toes are singing to meet the song of your arms:


Let the red scarf go swifter.
Summer and the sun command you.

Joy


Let a joy keep you.
Reach out your hands
And take it when it runs by,
As the Apache dancer
Clutches his woman.
I have seen them
Live long and laugh loud,
Sent on singing, singing,
Smashed to the heart
Under the ribs
With a terrible love.
Joy always,
Joy everywhere--
Let joy kill you!
Keep away from the little deaths.

Your Picture

It's with your laughing picture that I'm living now,
You whose wrists are so slender and crackle at the joints,
You who wring your hands yet are unwilling to go,
You whose guests stay for hours sharing sadness and joys.


You who'll run from the cards and Rakoczy bravura,
From the glass of the drawing-room and from the guests
To the keyboard on fire, unable to endure
Bones and roses and dice and rosettes and the rest.


You will fluff up your hair, and a reckless tea-rose,
Smelling of cigarettes, pin to your bright-red sash,
And then waltz to your glory, your sadness and woes
Tossing off like a scarf, beaming, breathless and flushed.


You will crumple the skin of an orange and swallow
Cooling morsels again and again in your haste
To return to the hall, to the whirling and mellow
Lights, and air with the sweet sweat of fresh waltzes laced.


Defying steam and scorching breath
The way a whirlwind dies,
The way a murid faces death
With wide unflinching eyes.


Know all: not mountains' noise and hush,
And not a purebred steed-
The reckless roses in your sash
Are riding at full speed.


No, not the clatter of the hoofs
And not the mountains' hush,
But only she who stands aloof
With flowers in her sash.


And only that is really It
What makes our ears ring,
And what the whirlwind-chasing feet,
Soul, tulle and silk sash bring.


Until sides split the jokes are cracked,
We're rolling in the aisles,
The envy of the romping sacks-
Until somebody cries.

In everything I seek to grasp...

In everything I seek to grasp
The fundamental:
The daily choice, the daily task,
The sentimental.


To plumb the essence of the past,
The first foundations,
The crux, the roots, the inmost hearts,
The explanations.


And, puzzling out the weave of fate,
Events observer,
To live, feel, love and meditate
And to discover.


Oh, if my skill did but suffice
After a fashion,
In eight lines I'd anatomize
The parts of passion.


I'd write of sins, forbidden fruit,
Of chance-seized shadows;
Of hasty flight and hot pursuit,
Of palms, of elbows.


Define its laws and origin
In terms judicial,
Repeat the names it glories in,
And the initials.


I'd sinews strain my verse to shape
Like a trim garden:
The limes should blossom down the nape,
A double cordon.


My verse should breathe the fresh-clipped hedge,
Roses and meadows
And mint and new-mown hay and sedge,
The thunder's bellows.


As Chopin once in his etudes
Miraculously conjured
Parks, groves, graves and solitudes-
A living wonder.


The moment of achievement caught
Twixt sport and torment…
A singing bowstring shuddering taut,
A stubborn bow bent.

Hops


Beneath the willow wound round with ivy
we take cover from the worst
of the storm, with a greatcoat round
our shoulders and my hands around your waist.


I've got it wrong. That isn't ivy
entwined in the bushes round
the wood, but hops. You intoxicate me!
Let's spread the greatcoat on the ground.

Alabama Song

Show me the way to the next whisky bar
Oh, don't ask why, oh, don't ask why
Show me the way to the next whisky bar
Oh, don't ask why, oh, don't ask why
For if we don't find the next whisky bar
I tell you we must die
I tell you we must die
I tell you
I tell you
I tell you we must die

Oh, moon of Alabama
We now must say say good-bye
We've lost our good old mamma
And must have whisky
Oh, you know why.

Show me the way to the next pretty girl
Oh, don't ask why, oh, don't ask why
Show me the way to the next pretty girl
Oh don't ask why, oh, don't ask why
For if we don't find the next pretty girl
I tell you we must die
I tell you we must die
I tell you
I tell you
I tell you we must die

Oh, moon of Alabama
We now must say good-bye
We've lost our good old mamma
And must have a girl
Oh, you know why.

Show me the way to the next little dollar
Oh, don't ask why, oh, don't ask why
Show me the way to the next little dollar
Oh, don't ask why, oh, don't ask why
For if we don't find the next little dollar
I tell you we must die
I tell you we must die
I tell you
I tell you
I tell you we must die

Oh, moon of Alabama
We now must say good-bye
We've lost our good old mamma
And must have dollars
Oh, you know why.

The Soul

Eternal Undines, split the pure water.
Venus, sister of azure, stir up the clear wave.
Wandering Jews of Norway, tell me of snow;
old beloved exiles tell me of the sea.
Myself: No, no more of these pure drinks,
these water-flowers for glasses;
neither legends nor faces quench my thirst;
singer, your god-child is my thirst so mad,
a mouthless intimate hydra
which consumes and ravages.

The Sly One

In the brown dining-room,
which was perfumed
with the scent of polish and fruit,
I was shoveling up at my ease
a plateful of some Belgian dish
or other, and sprawling in my enormous chair.


While I ate, I listened, happy and silent, to the clock.
The kitchen door opened with a gust,
and the servant girl came in,
I don't know what for,
neckerchief loose, hair dressed impishly.


And, passing her little finger tremblingly across her cheek,
a pink and white peach-bloom,
pouting with her childish mouth,
she tidied the plates standing close to me,
to make me feel comfortable; - and then, just like that,
- to get a kiss of course said
very softly: 'Feel, then, I' got a cold in the cheek…'

The Seekers Of Lice

When the child's forehead, full of red torments,
Implores the white swarm of indistinct dreams,
There come near his bed two tall charming sisters
With slim fingers that have silvery nails.
They seat the child in front of a wide open
Window where the blue air bathes a mass of flowers,
And in his heavy hair where the dew falls,
Move their delicate, fearful and enticing fingers.
He listens to the singing of their apprehensive breath
Which smells of long rosy plant honey,
And which at times a hiss interrupts, saliva
Caught on the lip or desire for kisses.
He hears their black eyelashes beating
in the perfumed Silence;
and their gentle electric fingers
Make in his half-drunken indolence the death of the little lice
Crackle under their royal nails.
Then the wine of Sloth rises in him,
The sigh of an harmonica which could bring on delerium;
The child feels, according to the slowness of the caresses,
Surging in him and dying continuously a desire to cry.

Sun And Flesh (Credo In Unam)

Birth of Venus
I
The Sun, the hearth of affection and life,
Pours burning love on the delighted earth,
And when you lie down in the valley, you can smell
How the earth is nubile and very full-blooded;
How its huge breast, heaved up by a soul,
Is, like God, made of love, and, like woman, of flesh,
And that it contains, big with sap and with sunlight,
The vast pullulation of all embryos!
And everything grows, and everything rises!


-O Venus, O Goddess!
I long for the days of antique youth,
Of lascivious satyrs, and animal fauns,
Gods who bit, mad with love, the bark of the boughs,
And among water-lilies kissed the Nymph with fair hair!
I long for the time when the sap of the world,
River water, the rose-coloured blood of green trees
Put into the veins of Pan a whole universe!
When the earth trembled, green,beneath his goat-feet;
When, softly kissing the fair Syrinx, his lips formed
Under heaven the great hymn of love;
When, standing on the plain, he heard round about him
Living Nature answer his call;
When the silent trees cradling the singing bird,
Earth cradling mankind, and the whole blue Ocean,
And all living creatures loved, loved in God!
I long for the time of great Cybele,
Who was said to travel, gigantically lovely,
In a great bronze chariot, through splendid cities;
Her twin breasts poured, through the vast deeps,
The pure streams of infinite life.
Mankind sucked joyfully at her blessed nipple,
Like a small child playing on her knees.


-Because he was strong, Man was gentle and chaste.
Misfortune! Now he says: I understand things,
And goes about with eyes shut and ears closed.

-And again, no more gods! no more gods! Man is King,
Man is God! But the great faith is Love!
Oh! if only man still drew sustenance from your nipple,
Great mother of gods and of men, Cybele;
If only he had not forsaken immortal Astarte
Who long ago, rising in the tremendous brightness
Of blue waters, flower-flesh perfumed by the wave,
Showed her rosy navel, towards which the foam came snowing
And , being a goddess with the great conquering black eyes,
Made the nightingale sing in the woods and love in men's hearts!
The Birth of Venus


II

I believe! I believe in you! divine mother,
Sea-born Aphrodite! - Oh! the path is bitter
Since the other God harnessed us to his cross;
Flesh, Marble, Flower, Venus, in you I believe!

-yes, Man is sad and ugly, sad under the vast sky.
He possesses clothes, because he is no longer chaste,
Because he has defiled his proud, godlike head
And because he has bent, like an idol in the furnace,
His Olympian form towards base slaveries!
Yes, even after death, in the form of pale skeletons
He wishes to live and insult the original beauty!
-And the Idol in whom you placed such maidenhood,
Woman, in whom you rendered our clay divine,
So that Man might bring light into his poor soul
And slowly ascend, in unbounded love,
From the earthly prison to the beauty of day,
Woman no longer knows even how to be a Courtesan!
-It's a fine farce! and the world snickers
At the sweet and sacred name of great Venus!
III

If only the times which have come and gone might come again!

-For Man is finished! Man has played all the parts!
In the broad daylight, wearied with breaking idols
He will revive, free of all his gods,
And, since he is of heaven, he will scan the heavens!
The Ideal, that eternal, invincible thought, which is
All; The living god within his fleshly clay,
Will rise, mount, burn beneath his brow!
An when you see him plumbing the whole horizon,
Despising old yokes, and free from all fear,
You will come and give him holy Redemption!
-Resplendent, radiant, from the bosom of the huge seas
You will rise up and give to the vast Universe
Infinite Love with its eternal smile!
The World will vibrate like an immense lyre
In the trembling of an infinite kiss!
-The World thirsts for love: you will come and slake its thirst.
....................................................


O! Man has raised his free, proud head!
And the sudden blaze of primordial beauty
Makes the god quiver in the altar of the flesh!



Happy in the present good, pale from the ill suffered,
Man wishes to plumb all depths, - and know all things! Thought,
So long a jade, and for so long oppressed,
Springs from his forehead! She will know Why!...
Let her but gallop free, and Man will find Faith!


-Why the blue silence, unfathomable space?
Why the golden stars, teeming like sands?
If one ascended forever, what would one see up there?
Does a sheperd drive this enormous flock
Of worlds on a journey through this horror of space?
And do all these worlds contained in the vast ether,
tremble at the tones of an eternal voice?
-And Man, can he see? can he say: I believe?
Is the langage of thought anymore than a dream?
If man is born so quickly, if life is so short
Whence does he come? Does he sink into the deep Ocean
Of Germs, of Foetuses, of Embryos, to the bottom
of the huge Crucible where Nature the Mother
Will resuscitate him, a living creature,
To love in the rose and to grow in the corn?...
We cannot know! - We are weighed down
With a cloak of ignorance, hemmed in by chimaeras!
Men like apes, dropped from our mothers' wombs,
Our feeble reason hides the infinite from us!
We wish to perceive: - and Doubt punishes us!
Doubt, dismal bird, beat us down with its wing...


-And the horizon rushes away in endless flight!...
.......................................................


The vast heaven is open! the mysteries lie dead
Before erect Man, who folds his strong arms
Among the vast splendour of abundant Nature!
He sings... and the woods sing, the river murmurs
A song full of happiness which rises towards the light!...

-it is Redemption! it is love! it is love!...
IV


O splendour of flesh! O ideal splendour!
O renewal of love, triumphal dawn
When, prostrating the Gods and the Heroes,
White Callipyge and little Eros
Covered with the snow of rose petals, will caress
Women and flowers beneath their lovely outstretched feet!


-O great Ariadne who pour out your tears
On the shore, as you see, out there on the waves,
The sail of Theseus flying white under the sun,
O sweet virgin child whom a night has broken,
Be silent! On his golden chariot studded with black grapes,

Lysios, who has been drawn through Phrygian fields
By lascivious tigers and russet panthers,
Reddens the dark mosses along the blue rivers.


-Zeus, the Bull, cradles on his neck like a child
The nude body of Europa who throws her white arm
Round the God's muscular neck which shivers in the wave.
Slowly he turns his dreamy eye towards her;
She, droops her pale flowerlike cheek
On the brow of Zeus; her eyes are closed; she is dying
In a divine kiss, and the murmuring waters
Strew the flowers of their golden foam on her hair.
-Between the oleander and the gaudy lotus tree
Slips amorously the great dreaming Swan
Enfloding Leda in the whiteness of his wing;
-And while Cypris goes by, strangely beautiful,
And, arching the marvellous curves of her back,
Proudly displays the golden vision of her big breasts
And snowy belly embroidered with black moss,
-Hercules, Tamer of beasts, in his Strength,
Robes his huge body with the lion's skin as with glory
And faces the horizons, his brow terrible and sweet!
Vaguely lit by the summer moon,
Erect, naked, dreaming in her pallor of gold
Streaked by the heavy wave of her long blue hair,
In the shadowy glade whenre stars spring in the moss,
The Dryade gazes up at the silent sky...


-White Selene, timidly, lets her veil float,
Over the feet of beautiful Endymion,
And throws him a kiss in a pale beam...
-The Spring sobs far off in a long ectasy...
Ii is the nymph who dreams with one elbow on her urn,
Of the handsome white stripling her wave has pressed against.
-A soft wind of love has passed in the night,
And in the sacred woods, amid the standing hair of the great trees,
Erect in majesty, the shadowly Marbles,
The Gods, on whose brows the Bullfinch has his nest,
-the Gods listen to Men, and to the infinite World!
Original French


Soleil et Chair
I


Le Soleil, le foyer de tendresse et de vie,
Verse l'amour brûlant à la terre ravie,
Et, quand on est couché sur la vallée, on sent
Que la terre est nubile et déborde de sang ;
Que son immense sein, soulevé par une âme,
Est d'amour comme Dieu, de chair comme la femme,
Et qu'il renferme, gros de sève et de rayons,



Le grand fourmillement de tous les embryons !

Et tout croît, et tout monte !

spacespacespacespacespacespace- O Vénus, ô Déesse !
Je regrette les temps de l'antique jeunesse,
Des satyres lascifs, des faunes animaux,
Dieux qui mordaient d'amour l'écorce des rameaux
Et dans les nénuphars baisaient la Nymphe blonde !
Je regrette les temps où la sève du monde,
L'eau du fleuve, le sang rose des arbres verts
Dans les veines de Pan mettaient un univers !.
Où le sol palpitait, vert, sous ses pieds de chèvre ;
Où, baisant mollement le clair syrinx, sa lèvre
Modulait sous le ciel le grand hymne d'amour ;
Où, debout sur la plaine, il entendait autour
Répondre à son appel la Nature vivante ;
Où les arbres muets, berçant l'oiseau qui chante,
La terre berçant l'homme, et tout l'Océan bleu
Et tous les animaux aimaient, aimaient en Dieu !


Soleil et Chair, Suite


Je regrette les temps de la grande Cybèle
Qu'on disait parcourir, gigantesquement belle,
Sur un grand char d'airain, les splendides cités ;
Son double sein versait dans les immensités
Le pur ruissellement de la vie infinie.
L'Homme suçait, heureux, sa mamelle bénie,
Comme un petit enfant, jouant sur ses genoux.


-Parce qu'il était fort, l'Homme était chaste et doux.
Misère ! Maintenant il dit : Je sais les choses,
Et va, les yeux fermés et les oreille closes.

-Et pourtant, plus de dieux ! plus de dieux ! l'Homme est Roi,
L'Homme est Dieu ! Mais l'Amour, voilà la grande Foi !
Oh ! si l'homme puisait encore à ta mamelle,
Grande mère des dieux et des hommes, Cybèle ;
S'il n'avait pas laissé l'immortelle Astarté
Qui jadis, émergeant dans l'immense clarté
Des flots bleus, fleur de chair que la vague parfume,
Montra son nombril rose où vint neiger l'écume,
Et fit chanter, Déesse aux grands yeux noirs vainqueurs,
Le rossignol aux bois et l'amour dans les coeurs !
II

Je crois en toi ! Je crois en toi ! divine mère,
Aphrodite marine ! - Oh ! la route est amère
Depuis que l'autre Dieu nous attelle à sa croix ;


Chair, Marbre, Fleur, Vénus, c'est en toi que je crois !

-Oui, l'Homme est triste et laid, triste sous le ciel vaste,
Il a des vêtements, parce qu'il n'est plus chaste,
Parce qu'il a sali son fier buste de Dieu,
Et qu'il a rabougri, comme une idole au feu,
Son corps Olympien aux servitudes sales !
Oui, même après la mort, dans les squelettes pâles
Il veut vivre, insultant la première beauté !
-Et l'Idole où tu mis tant de virginité,
Où tu divinisas notre argile, la Femme,
Afin que l'Homme pût éclairer sa pauvre âme
Et monter lentement, dans un immense amour,
De la prison terrestre à la beauté du jour,
La Femme ne sait plus même être Courtisane !
-C'est une bonne farce ! et le monde ricane
Au nom doux et sacré de la grande Vénus !
III

Si les temps revenaient, les temps qui sont venus !

-Car l'Homme a fini ! l'Homme a joué tous les rôles !
Au grand jour, fatigué de briser des idoles
Il ressuscitera, libre de tous ses Dieux,
Et, comme il est du ciel, il scrutera les cieux !
L'idéal, la pensée invincible, éternelle,
Tout ; le dieu qui vit, sous son argile charnelle,
Montera, montera, brûlera sous son front !
Et quand tu le verras sonder tout l'horizon,
Contempteur des vieux jougs, libre de toute crainte,
Tu viendras lui donner la Rédemption sainte !
-Splendide, radieuse, au sein des grandes mers
Tu surgiras, jetant sur le vaste Univers
L'Amour infini dans un infini sourire !
Le Monde vibrera comme une immense lyre
Dans le frémissement d'un immense baiser
-Le Monde a soif d'amour : tu viendras l'apaiser.
IV


O splendeur de la chair ! ô splendeur idéale !
O renouveau d'amour, aurore triomphale
Où, courbant à leurs pieds les Dieux et les Héros,
Kallipyge la blanche et le petit Éros
Effleureront, couverts de la neige des roses,
Les femmes et les fleurs sous leurs beaux pieds écloses !


-O grande Ariadné, qui jette tes sanglots
Sur la rive, en voyant fuir là-bas sur les flots
Blanche sous le soleil, la voile de Thésée,

O douce vierge enfant qu'une nuit a brisée,
Tais-toi ! Sur son char d'or brodé de noirs raisins,
Lysios, promené dans les champs Phrygiens
Par les tigres lascifs et les panthères rousses,
Le long des fleuves bleus rougit les sombres mousses.


-Zeus, Taureau, sur son cou berce comme une enfant
Le corps nu d'Europé, qui jette son bras blanc
Au cou nerveux du Dieu frissonnant dans la vague
Il tourne lentement vers elle son oeil vague ;
Elle, laisse traîner sa pâle joue en fleur
Au front de Zeus ; ses yeux sont fermés ; elle meurt
Dans un divin baiser, et le flot qui murmure
De son écume d'or fleurit sa chevelure.
-Entre le laurier-rose et le lotus jaseur
Glisse amoureusement le grand Cygne rêveur
Embrassant la Léda des blancheurs de son aile ;
-Et tandis que Cypris passe, étrangement belle,
Et, cambrant les rondeurs splendides de ses reins,
Étale fièrement l'or de ses larges seins
Et son ventre neigeux brodé de mousse noire,
-Héraclès, le Dompteur, qui, comme d'une gloire
Fort, ceint son vaste corps de la peau du lion,
S'avance, front terrible et doux, à l'horizon !
Par la lune d'été vaguement éclairée,
Debout, nue, et rêvant dans sa pâleur dorée
Que tache le flot lourd de ses longs cheveux bleus,
Dans la clairière sombre, où la mousse s'étoile,
La Dryade regarde au ciel silencieux....


-La blanche Séléné laisse flotter son voile,
Craintive, sur les pieds du bel Endymion,
Et lui jette un baiser dans un pâle rayon...
-La Source pleure au loin dans une longue extase...
C'est la nymphe qui rêve, un coude sur son vase,
Au beau jeune homme blanc que son onde a pressé.
-Une brise d'amour dans la nuit a passé,
Et, dans les bois sacrés, dans l'horreur des grands arbres,
Majestueusement debout, les sombres Marbres,
Les Dieux, au front desquels le Bouvreuil fait son nid,
-Les Dieux écoutent l'homme et le Monde infini !

Sensation


In the blue summer evenings, I will go along the paths,
And walk over the short grass, as I am pricked by the wheat:
Daydreaming I will feel the coolness on my feet.
I will let the wind bathe my bare head.
I will not speak, I will have no thoughts:
But infinite love will mount in my soul;
And I will go far, far off, like a gypsy,
Through the country side-joyous as if I were with a woman.

My Little Lovelies

A tearful tincture washes
Cabbage-green skies;
Beneath the dribbling bushes
Your raincoats lie;


Pale white in private moonlight,
Like round-eyed sores,
Flap your scabby kneecaps apart,
My ugly whores!


We loved each other in those days,
Ugly blue whore!
We ate boiled eggs
And weed.


One night you made me a poet,
Ugly blond whore.
Get between my legs,
I'll whip you.


I puked up your greasy hair,
Ugly black whore;
You tried to unstring
My guitar.


Blah! Some of my dried-up spit,
Ugly red whore,
Still stinks in the cracks
Of your breast.


O my little lovelies,
I hate your guts!
Go stick big blisters
On your ugly tits!


Break the cracked bottles and jars
Of my feelings;
Come on! Be my ballerinas
Just for a while!


Your shoulder blades are twisted back,
My masterpieces!
Stick stars in your snatches and shake
Them to bits!


And it was for you hunks of meat
I wrote my rhymes!
My love was sticky self-deceit
And dirty games!


Dumb bunch of burnt-out stars,


-Against the walls!

Go back to God, croak in corners
Like animals!


Pale white in private moonlight,
Like round-eyed sores,
Flap your scabby kneecaps apart,
My ugly whores!

May Banners

In the bright lime-tree branches
Dies a fainting mort. But lively song
Flutters among the currant bushes.
So that our bloods may laugh in our veins,
See the vines tangling themselves.


The sky is as pretty as an angel,
The azure and the wave commune.
I go out. If a sunbeam wounds me
I shall succumb on the moss.
Being patient and being bored
Are too simple. To the devil with my cares.


I want dramatic summer
To bind me to its chariot of fortune.
Let me most because of you, o Nature, -
Ah ! less alone and less useless ! - die.


There where the Shepherds, it's strange,
Die more or less because of the world.
I am willing that the seasons should wear me out.
To you, Nature, I surrender ;
With my hunger and all my thirst.


And, if it please you, feed and water me.
Nothing, nothing at all deceives me ;
To laugh at the sun is to laugh at one's parents,
But I do not wish to laugh at anything ;
And may this misfortune go free.
~~


May Banners
(alternative translation
)


In the bright branches of the lindens dies a sickly hunting call.
But the lively songs fly about in the currant bushes.
So that our blood will laugh in our veins, here are the vines all entangled.
The sky is pretty as an angel.
The azure and the wave commune.
I go out. If a ray of light wounds me, I will expire on the moss


To be patient and to be bored are to simple. Fie* on my cares.
I want a dramatic summer to bind me to it's chariot of fortune.
Let me, o nature, mostly through you


-Ah ! less alone and less worthless ! - die.
In the place where the shepherds, it is strange,
die approximately through out the world
I am willing that the seasons wear me out.


To you nature, I give myself over;
And my hunger and all my thirst.
And, if you will, feed and water me.


Nothing at all deceives me;
To laugh at the sun is to laugh at one's parents,
but I do not want to laugh at anything;
And may this misfortune be free.

L'Idole.. Sonnet Du Trou Du Cul

Obscur et froncé comme un oeillet violet
Il respire, humblement tapi parmi la mousse.
Humide encor d'amour qui suit la fuite douce
Des Fesses blanches jusqu'au coeur de son ourlet.


Des filaments pareils à des larmes de lait
Ont pleuré, sous le vent cruel qui les repousse,
À travers de petits caillots de marne rousse
Pour s'aller perdre où la pente les appelait.


Mon Rêve s'aboucha souvent à sa ventouse ;
Mon âme, du coït matériel jalouse,
En fit son larmier fauve et son nid de sanglots.


C'est l'olive pâmée, et la flûte caline ;
C'est le tube où descend la céleste praline :
Chanaan féminin dans les moiteurs enclos !


Albert Mérat.


The Idol.
Sonnet to an Asshole


Dark and wrinkled like a purple pink
It breathes, nestling humbly among the still-damp
Froth of love that follows the gentle slope
Of the white buttocks to its crater's edge.


Filaments like tears of milk
Have wept in the cruel wind which pushes them back,
Across little clots of reddish marl
To lose themselves where the slope called them.


My dream has often kissed its opening;
My soul, jealous of physical coitus,
Has made this its fawn-coloured tear-bottle and its nest of sobs.


It is the rapturous olive and the wheedling flute,
The tube from which the heavenly burnt almond falls:
Feminine Canaan enclosed among moistures.


Albert Mérat.
P.V.-A.R.

Clearance Sale

For what the Jews have not sold,
what neither nobility nor crime have tasted,
what is unknown to monstrous love
and to the infernal probity of the masses!


what neither time nor science need recognize: The Voices restored;
fraternal awakening of all choral and orchestral energies
and their instantaneous application; the opportunity, the only one,
for the release of our senses! For sale Bodies without price,
outside any race, any world, any sex, any lineage! Riches gushing at every step!


Uncontrolled sale of diamonds!
For sale anarchy for the masses;
irrepressible satisfaction for rare connoisseurs;
agonizing death for the faithful and for lovers!


For sale colonization and migrations, sports,
fairylands and incomparable comforts,
and the noise and the movement
and the future they make!


For sale the application of calculations
and the incredible leaps of harmony.
Discoveries and terms never dreamed of,
-- immediate possession.


Wild and infinite flight toward invisible splendors,
toward intangible delights-and
its maddening secrets for every vice
-- and its terrifying gaiety for the mob.


For sale, the bodies, the voices,
the enormous and unquestionable wealth,
that which will never be sold.
Salesmen are not at the end of their stock!
It will be some time before travelers have to turn in their accounts.

Conclusion


The pigeons which flutter in the meadow,
the game which runs and sees in the dark,
the water animals, the animal enslaved,
the last butterflies!.. also are thirsty.
But to dissolve where that wandering cloud is dissolving -
Oh! Favoured by what is fresh!
To expire in those damp violets
whose awakening fills these woods?

Being Beauteous

Against a fall of snow, a Being Beauiful, and very tall.
Whistlings of death and circles of faint music
Make this adored body, swelling and trembling
Like a specter, rise...
Black and scarlet gashes burst in the gleaming flesh.
The true colors of life grow dark,
Shimmering and sperate
In the scaffolding, around the Vision.


Shiverings mutter and rise,
And the furious taste of these effects is charged
With deadly whistlings and the raucous music
That the world, far behind us, hurls at our mother of beauty...
She retreats, she rises up...
Oh! Our bones have put on new flesh, for love.


Oh ash-white face


Oh tousled hair


O crystal arms!


On this cannot I mean to destroy myself
In a swirling of trees and soft air!